GabrielDuquette comments on [Link] Why the kids don’t know no algebra - Less Wrong

21 Post author: GLaDOS 04 July 2012 10:29AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 04 July 2012 09:07:31PM *  1 point [-]

My bad for perpetually erring on the side of brevity.

By "good sense" I mean it's fundamentally wise to account for how people might react to what you're saying when you're figuring out how to say it. That can go either way. For example, if your audience has evaporatively cooled to the point that they'll only tolerate virulently anti-PC or PC views, then you probably won't have much incentive to "reach across the aisle," as it were.

EDIT: This is irrespective of the facts, of course. The anti-PC crowd may have greater access to the facts by virtue of their comfort with prickly ideas, but of what use is that advantage if the people who need those same facts most refuse to listen? It's a truism, I know, but operative aspect of that word here is true.

Comment author: Multiheaded 04 July 2012 09:13:42PM *  0 points [-]

I see, I see, but how much of that is mere pragmatism and how much is you rationalizing the virtue of politeness, which we've been raised with among other such ideology-related memes?

Comment author: [deleted] 04 July 2012 09:15:26PM 1 point [-]

If politeness = effectiveness, then where does the rationalization come into play?

And I don't mean politeness as a Trojan horse for avoidance and euphemism.